A Health care proxy or healthcare surrogate makes medical decisions on your behalf. A healthcare proxy will make sure the doctors follow your wishes. It is part of your Advanced Healthcare Directive and is considered an essential part of estate planning. So, how can you assign a healthcare proxy in Estate planning?
Why should you assign a healthcare proxy in estate planning?
Life is unpredictable and unexpected, and one can suffer a fatal accident or illness at any time. It could also make you incapacitated. To ensure you get the best treatment and your wishes are followed in such a case, one should name and designate a Health care proxy that gives someone the health power of attorney.
The healthcare proxy will make medical decisions for you. This ensures that you get your preferred treatment from the doctor as you wish. When choosing a healthcare proxy, one should consider someone who is close to you and is a person who shares the same medical views as you.
Furthermore, you should also choose someone who can make his own decisions and is in good health. Finally, you can also name a secondary proxy who can act when the primary representative is unavailable or unable to work.
Living will
A living will express your wishes regarding medical treatment in certain medical circumstances. Depending on the state laws, one can use this document to express his desire on whether he wants to be given life-sustaining treatment in case of life-threatening illness or injury.
One can use this document to express in advance how and which treatments he wishes to get. You can mention the treatments you don’t want your physicians or doctors to give you in your living will. A living will apply when receiving the treatment would prolong your life, even for a fixed and short period.
How to name a healthcare proxy legally
To name a health care proxy as part of your estate planning, you can do so through a legal document called a durable power of attorney. In this, you have to fill out a legal form with the help of an attorney.
These documents require you to provide two or more adult witnesses as stated by state laws. The witnesses should not include people who have an inheritance or are related to you in some way.
Some states even want to avoid witnesses responsible for your medical payments. For example, they are the staff of a medical treatment Centre or hospital. It would be best if you also made sure these documents are notarized.
You must follow your state’s rules to fill out the form. The completed forms must be shared with your health care proxy or alternate health care proxy as they are completed. You also need to share these with your doctor, who will include them in your medical records. Make sure that the hospital should place a copy of your form in your medical history.
Discuss these things with your family, so they know your wishes and intentions beforehand. Make sure you keep a list of everyone who has a copy so you can inform them of any changes you make to these forms.
Work as a health care proxy in estate planning
Healthcare proxies often decide when treatment should be started or stopped and what medical interventions are needed. In addition, a healthcare proxy decides what kind of treatment can be used for your treatment.
Suppose you need long-term or permanent care in case of incapacitation. Then your healthcare proxy is the one who is responsible for finding the appropriate place for you to go. Finally, the most critical and challenging part of being a healthcare proxy is deciding whether to continue or end life support for you.
You would’ve most likely added provisions on how much intervention you want before ending life support. The clear you are, the better it is for you.
Conclusion
A healthcare proxy is an essential part of estate planning, and one should make sure that they have decided on a healthcare proxy during the planning of his estate.
The health care proxy has a vital role; thus, it is essential to make sure you choose it wisely. In this article, you learn about health care proxy and how one can appoint a health care proxy during his estate planning.
